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All You Need To Know About Self Marketing

Self- Promotion That Works

As a business owner, you need to be able to promote yourself to get the attention of prospective client family members, yet if you are like my client family members, you are concerned because you don’t want to come off as a bragger. The question is, how do you navigate self-marketing without feeling like you are egocentric? And you also need to ask, what self-marketing skills do I need to become very comfortable sharing my great products and services yet not bragging?

Self-Marketing Tips

Here are some of my best self-marketing tips. I can tell you they work for me and for my client family members and these self-promotion tools will allow you to feel much more comfortable sharing what you do while promoting yourself and your brand.

Before we begin, think about the credible experts you know who are consultants, coaches, and mentors. Then think of the musicians and authors and actors and singers you admire. Now, remember, all of these people got you to know them. They used the same techniques for self-promotion and self-branding that I will share with you in this article.

What they all have in common is that they were willing to promote themselves to get others to know of them. They did it in an ethical and professional way and we have come to know of them because they weren’t afraid to promote themselves or their talents or their businesses.

The goal of self-branding and self-marketing and self-promotion is to attract a larger audience to know about the great work you are doing in the world. You don’t want to do this by screaming from the rooftops about how great you are. You want to be more subtle while having a proven self-marketing plan.

Ok, with this in mind, here are the actual self-marketing and self-promotion skills and tips I use with my own client family members and that I have used to become somewhat of a “celebrity” in my own field.

Self-Marketing And Self-Promotion Skills And Tips

Writing – Blogging on your own blog, submitting articles to others who will accept your blog, offering to write articles for web and print publications are all great ways to be seen by a larger audience. When I wanted greater visibility over 20 years ago, I began to write top ten tips, newsletters, online articles and to write for print magazines. Before I wrote my first book, Work Yourself Happy, I was already very well known for my writings and was getting known in my niche. One of my client family members began blogging on her website and submitting guest blogs and also offered to write a column for a massage magazine (her target audience is massage therapists) and also offered a column for her local paper. She has added over 2,000 people to her database of prospective client family members and is becoming well known in her niche.

Speaking – Speaking in public to any size audience lets people discover more about you and your products and services and also allows people to get to know you, like you and trust you. Because you are up on stage or in front of the room, you instantly become the credible expert. When I did my first workshop, over 20 years ago, I attracted 50 people to hear me speak and to experience my consulting and coaching. By the end of the workshop, I had a book deal with a publisher to publish my book and I had 15 new clients as well as new friends. I also built awareness for myself and my brand. I went from being an unknown in my industry to being a name in my field. One of my clients was very concerned about speaking because she is so nervous in front of an audience. I made it super easy for her. I had her speak seated at a table in front of the room with her notes open on her computer. She did a 90-minute event with great success and has a 2-hour event coming up next month.

Media – Right from the start of my business I pitched myself as a credible expert to speak about current issues. I contacted local radio and TV stations and I submitted press releases to magazines and newspapers. I was on the radio almost daily. I began to get newspaper and magazine coverage as well. Soon not only did the local TV stations have me on, I was on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, CNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, and more. It began with small local stations and small local newspapers. We still send out press releases regularly and attract great press which expands our brand. A client family member hired me to write 12 press releases. I also taught her what to say when she “pitched” the press. She was interviewed last week on her local NBC affiliate station. She can now say, “as seen on NBC”. Her expert status has instantly been elevated and she doesn’t feel as if she is bragging.

Testimonials – People believe what other people say and not what you say about yourself or the results you deliver. I have collected over 1,000 video testimonials and hundreds of written and audio testimonials over the years. I strongly suggest you become great at asking for testimonials. I remember the first time a client family member told me that my help had resulted in closing a $10,000 sale, I knew I needed a testimonial and wasn’t sure how to ask. Now, I am really great at asking and I simply say, “Would you be willing to say that into a video camera? There are many people who I can also help who might not know enough about the kinds of results I deliver and that video can help them become informed and make the right decision choosing me, like you did, as their mentor.” That is easy for me to say because the reason for the testimonial isn’t to too my own horn, it is to help potential client family members. I am working with a client family member who gets amazing results for clients! He had NO testimonials. I was sitting right next to him when he kept getting texts from clients thanking him for making such a big difference and sharing details of the success they are having as a direct result of his consulting. I quickly set up a youtube channel for him and taught him what to say to these client family members of his and he acquired 14 testimonials over the next 3 weeks. His credible is growing and he isn’t the one bragging!

Creating a Tribe – When I began my business Facebook didn’t exist. Today we have a huge advantage that we can gather our exact target audience and embrace and nurture them and give them an experience of us and our value while promoting our brand. I not only have a Facebook Business Page I have a Facebook Group where my Tribe, my community hangs out. This has created a movement, a Heart-repreneur® cause.

Give it Away – Give away some of your best information, products, or services. I allow people to download special reports, watch my transformational webinar, read my magazine, listen to my radio show, and find out a lot about me on my website. My client family members do all kinds of things where they give value away. Some do free health fairs, others give away free samples, some have webinars, others hold free classes and workshops, some have free checklists and others free templates. All of these things allow you to show off the kinds of work you do or the kinds of results you get or the products and services you provide. And none of these sounds like bragging. You don’t have to push to sell yourself. Instead, people get to sample what you have and decide if they want to do business with you.

Pick 3

I suggest you pick 3 of the above ideas (I have a lot more and if you want to discover some of them get a free session now. )It is not about taking action on all of these. It is about creating a system where you focus on getting your brand promoted and creating more awareness about you and your business with self-promotion.

Let me also share what people do wrong in self-promotion. I will start with my own major self-marketing error. Many years ago when I was being introduced on a major network television station, the interview referred to me as, “The Guru of Coaching”. I thought that sounded pretty cool and believed I knew a lot about the industry and had been awarded the top female coach in the world by www.coachinggurus.net and was also named by them as one of the top ten coaches worldwide. I thought I was a pretty big deal. In the words of my mentor, “your ego is not your amigo”. Those words became true. I registered and trademarked the phrase “The Guru of Coaching” and later realized how egotistical that was. That had nothing to do with the results I give my client family members and was very self-centered. I didn’t realize this until I had proudly used the trademarked phrase for many years and then one day it hit me that this was the wrong way to do any self-promotion and self-marketing.

One of my client family members shared her story with me of self-promotion she said she regretted and her lesson may help you. She was doing a brand that had to do with being sexy. She was promoting her brand to women and helping them be and feel sexy related to their businesses. The concept was fine. The problem was she began to claim herself as a sexy female on stages, on social media, on TV, and on her website. Her clothing, her hair and her makeup screamed: “look at me”. She was having a very difficult time attracting client family members and came to me for help. We looked at what her real mission was with her business. She told me she wanted to help women who had been beaten down in life to realize they are sexy at any age, with any body size or shape and no matter who had told cut them down in business and in life. I asked her if her being sexy everywhere was helping these women or scaring them away as they did not see themselves as sexy or as pretty as the image she created for herself. She had an instant epiphany! She changed the name of her brand and adjusted her messaging and her own image. She got focused on helping women who had been told they weren’t beautiful, they would not be successful and other such negative stories, to shed those ideas and to become confident. These women were getting her help to fall in love with themselves and to believe in themselves and to go after their goals with her help and support. Instead of struggling to attract client family members, she suddenly had prospective client family members flocking to her. She told me that focusing on helping others get the results they wanted was the magical idea I gave her that changed everything. She even confessed to me that when her image was about HER being sexy she didn’t have a lot of friends. Now, that her message is focused on other people, she suddenly is more loved, appreciated and accepted.

Now what? I don’t write these articles to give you information. There is plenty of that everywhere. I write so that you will create a transformation. Transformation comes when you access information and then make a decision to shift and to change. It takes a conscious decision to shift and then it takes physical action to permanently make a change.

You have accessed this information. If you really want your business to become well known you must right now take a physical action to move you forward so that you can become a credible expert with the right self-marketing skills and using some of these self-promotion tips. I recommend you also get a copy of my best selling book that teaches you so much more to becoming the known name in your field.

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